I like the pace of technology, especially in finance where it can move so fast. In 2015 I was named one of the 25 top global finserv influencers. (http://bit.ly/1DsqaeK) In addition to Forbes I write for International Finance Magazine, Banking Technology and Mondo Visione, all based in London.

Market Data Sales Drop In Market Slowdown

The downturn in financial markets has the hit revenues of market data providers including Bloomberg, FactSet and Thomson Reuters. FactSet reported the number of users declined by 1,200 to 46,900 in the quarter ending November 1. The New York Times reported that Bloomberg lost 600 subscriptions — worth approximately $1 million a month — just when MF Global went bust. Thomson Reuters has been in turmoil with some of the top Reuters execs losing their jobs in 2011.

Firms with 16 or 17 Bloomberg terminals might decide only 6 or 7 key people need them, said Mark Coriaty, director of strategic partnerships at Eze Castle Integration, a Boston-based firm which provides a full range of trading and accounting infrastructure for buy-side firms. Market data is now available from many sources at high quality and lower price than a few years ago, he added. Consulting firms have sprung up to offer an evaluation of how market data terminals are used and inform firms where less expensive alternatives are available from other vendors.

“A lot of firms have used the same technologies for years and aren’t aware of what else is out there, or the price point,” he added.

“Terminals are not where people are at any more, except for fixed income.” He doesn’t expect the reduction in terminals to come immediately, though, because firms are pokey at monitoring their infrastructure.

Coriaty said that in the past an analyst might ask for FactSet and someone would sign a contract and then forget about it.

“Then five years later they realize they’ve spent $300,000 on FactSet.” Now firms have put controls in place to monitor the applications and market data expenditures.

“2008 made everyone think differently.”

If current trends continue with banks cutting staff and spending, 2012 is shaping up to be a tough year in finance. Gillian Tett at the Financial Times wrote recently that 60,000 jobs were cut in the sector last year and no doubt at least a few of them had market data terminals on their desks.

Firms are cutting back, said Douglas B. Taylor of Burton-Taylor International Consulting, which follows the companies that feed traders their data and news. Its annual survey, out in January, shows growth of 4 percent. But since 2.5 percent of that is price increases, the growth was in the 1-2 percent range, positive but not spectacular in a $24.5 billion global market, Taylor said.

Thomson Reuters leads with about $7.6 billion and Bloomberg is next with about $7.3 billion. The two are the market leaders by far with about two-thirds of the total market for financial information. (Burton-Taylor strips out earnings from analytical tools, indices, fees from ratings and other non-information assets when it compiles its rankings. Thomson Reuters just completed the sale of its Kondor-branded risk business to Vista Equity Partners.)

Thomson Reuters has had a rough couple of years with a major upgrade to its market data platform late and underperforming. It launched a paclage for hedge funds in June, competing with Bloomberg’s HBOX which launched in January. Both the head of its markets division and the company’s CEO left last year. The CEO, Tom Glocer, was replaced by a Thomson man, James Smith.

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